


Encounters of the Supernatural kind

by crimsondust



Series: Poetry Smash Shenanigans [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Epistolary, M/M, poetry smash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 08:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21407377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsondust/pseuds/crimsondust
Summary: Jean Prouvaire during the first few months of arriving in Paris.
Relationships: Bahorel/Jean Prouvaire
Series: Poetry Smash Shenanigans [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543981
Comments: 10
Kudos: 9





	Encounters of the Supernatural kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PilferingApples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Passion of Thunderbolts](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/534202) by Aporetic Elenchus. 

> A very, very belated offering for Poetry Smash week. I owe you a lot many more fics about these two but I hope you enjoy this one anyway, friend.

July 1826

Dearest Sylvia,

I have just arrived in Paris doggedly followed by the great thunderstorm which made my first few days in an apartment with the damp and the rats, not very pleasant. I left my heart in the woods of my childhood home, where we used to play. Feeling quite homesick, I decided to look to nature for inspiration and wandered to the woods outside Paris with scrawls of papers in my pocket, contemplating nature and God. On my way, I strolled inside a graveyard and was vexed to find it occupied by a solitary figure, not clearly visible in the dark, but who talked in a funny accent and howled at the moon. He would only introduce himself as a lycanthrope and mentioned that he was also seeking refuge in nature and had been seized with a sudden inspiration to visit this particular graveyard tonight, to surround himself with nature.

This was a most unfortunate occurrence, because my muse had left me, and I was faced with this mysterious cryptid I could make nothing of. I told him he was my arch-nemesis for not letting me commune with nature and seek inspiration. In his turn, he offered me a mysterious gift wrapped in a cloche, which turned out to be a hard boiled egg, _an egg_, and asked me for my name. He laughed and said that he believed that we should be able to eat an egg whenever we wanted, despite what the Church had to say on that matter.

I have read stories about fae and that is how they steal your soul. I did not give him my name, but stubbornly stayed in the graveyard, musing over the nature of death - we were in a graveyard after all and death is a very natural sentiment. To reflect on life, one must be intimate friends with death. All my musings prompted him to relate morbid stories he had heard from his family, which both fascinated and horrified me. It was only when the sun was beginning to lighten the edges of the world and I was engrossed in my poetry, the muses having returned, that I saw him making his way back from the graveyard. When I asked him the reason, he grinned and said that lycanthropes do not stay in the sun. This was a truly unsettling encounter, even though I hope I shall see him again someday. I have hopes of being caught in an adventure involving this particular mysterious cryptid and to be a hero in that adventure. Paris has not disappointed me in its store of chimerical creatures, and I am glad to have come here, even though I miss you and great aunt terribly. 

Yours,

Jean Prouvaire 

August 1826

Dearest Sylvia,

I fear it was quite foolhardy on my part to promise you further adventures in my last letter for I have yet to come across my archnemesis, the lycanthrope again. I have searched in all the suitable places, and I have failed to run into him, except once for the briefest moment, I saw a cloak and his outline- I remember his beard, what with beards being an unnatural occurrence among young fashionable Parisians. I saw him dash across Pont Neuf, disappearing with a laughter that rang in the night. I have instead had the misfortune to run into a student of law if you will, several times during the past week, also bearded, which made me remark on the incident.

I met him at a salon, where I went to recite poetry, it was all common place. Overcome with feelings about my poem and more than a little melancholy, I sought the nearest café- the streets in Paris are too unfamiliar and I have had the misfortune to lose my way several times, besides the fact that people in this city speak French instead of Provençal, the sweet language of our childhood.

But I digress.

I met this wretched fellow, sporting the brightest red waistcoat and speaking a familiar tongue at the café again. It resembled our Provençal language, which made me feel less homesick and he spoke of lawyers with disdain and too much familiarity which made me think that he was a law student, making his way, much as I am in the medical profession – that is, not at all.

His manner of speaking was strange and sing-song, I am interested in language as you know, and I can lay some modest claims to speaking other languages and translating from them – words to me therefore have immense power and his use of argot delighted me much more than I can say. I suspected that he might be my familiar companion from that night, the beard was a giveaway, but I had to be sure. I had a mystery on my hands that I could not resist following.

Of course, we began a conversation, I talked far too much about Andre Chenier, the Revolution of 89 and working towards bringing a revolution in art, which is my dearest wish, and I must have been very enthusiastic for he smiled and thumped the table in delight and kissed me on the mouth, causing me to blush- the wretched fellow. He knew everyone in Madame P----------‘s salon, naturally, and he agreed to introduce me to other writers in Paris. He has an extensive vocabulary and knowledge of poetry and that is where I call this fellow wretched, because I, felt drawn towards him, this mysterious cryptid fellow about whom I knew nothing except that he was a law student with a dashing waistcoat who knew everyone in Paris.

On my making a joke about him being a mysterious fae trapping people's souls, by prowling in graveyards, he laughed and would not confirm whether he was the mysterious lycanthrope but there is an air about him that makes me firmly believe that he is the companion of my graveyard adventure. Instead, he asked if I was a mysterious fae, for I had been dressed in medieval fashion to imitate one of my favourite characters that day. 

I would not confirm that I was- for I had been seized with an idea to prolong this game longer to learn more about my companion without giving anything about myself away. In the end, we decided to share lodgings, for he said he had found a kindred spirit in me, another chimera, and those were very rare in Paris. I may have made a deal with a devil for all I know or at the very least, a very pleasant lycanthrope. For now, I have much better lodgings than the ones I shared with the rats, and I am not in any danger of being lost and forgetting my own house, for this Bahorel fellow is an excellent friend, even though he may tease and not answer any questions about lycanthropy. I know for certain that he is my arch-nemesis from that night in the graveyard, and the vision from the bridge even if he will not confirm that fact. 

But this Bahorel fellow, I can make nothing much of him and his chimerical nature which vexes me. He is a very vexing fellow, for he laughs all the time and has a contract with his mistress, Sophie, who is both brilliant and beautiful, and I may be slightly in love with her myself. She is indeed very accomplished and we spent several hours talking about history and printing presses, for she is the owner of one and sometimes helps us print subversive materials.   
I have neglected to ask much of you in talking of him. I hope your embroidery and glove making is coming on splendidly and my great-aunt is not giving you a difficult time? Write to me with all your news.

Yours,

Jean Prouvaire

December 1826

Dear Sylvia,

I was much gladdened to hear that great Aunt keeps well and that you have become quite the savvy businesswoman in your glove making business. If my letters have been reaching you slower than usual, I must confess that it is because I have been inducted into becoming a proper Parisian. That is, I have been walking everywhere from Rue d'Enfer to Rue Montparnasse and everywhere in between. I have fallen in love with the stars that shine from the sky at two in the morning as I sit across Paris' rooftops. Paris is still so much newer that its excitement has not worn enough in my eyes. On occasion, I am afraid that I am starting to forget my country walks with you dear cousin. The memories of our childhood haunts sometimes grows dimmer, even as Paris looms much larger in them. In that moment, I am struck with a particular melancholy, which I cannot share with anyone except you, dear cousin who have been there with me and who knows our secret places much better than I do now. In those moments, I am filled with a deep longing to return, to give up Paris and its excitement, for my childhood home. 

I have also had my first taste of riots and have become quite apt at throwing paving stones, as at throwing words on paper. There is an excitement at the start of every riot, and a hope that things will change, that things will improve for the gamin in the street, the poor widows, the wretched poor in their misery and for all of us. 

You asked after my friend, I still maintain that he is a whirlwind, a force of nature, it was only two days after I sent my previous letter that we were swept into our first riot. Bahorel organised the student groups and there we were, with a thrill, risking our lives and Bahorel in his natural element, dashing about everywhere, arranging everything. When he said his favourite pastime was terrorizing the bourgeoisie, I believed him, for he was one of the organisers and at the fore front of each clash. We did not face arrest this time, and yet, I feel my adventurous spirit returning and I feel like a Parisian and it is because of this fellow in a red waistcoat, who makes me believe in the impossible, even when my muse has left and I am in misery and the world may as well swallow me in one of those moods.

Of course, I have joined the society, Les Amis de la ABC, introduced as I was by this impudent fellow to like minded friends and have acquired several new friends, near and dear to my heart now, even as we were strangers a few weeks ago, such is the case with these eight young men, that I can safely prophecy that we will remain close friends for as long as I shall have breath in my body. We are all joined by our fervent belief and hope in things changing and the dawning of a new Republic. Sometimes I feel, as a poet, I can almost touch that horizon, which is a future full of possibilities and no kings and no censors. I have complained at length to you how censors have stopped my plays and writings, so I shall speak no more on that topic, you know my feelings already. We are all Jacobins here in this society, so to speak. I have given up medicine, which I do not regret, and my afternoons are spent in contemplation, writings or secret meetings all over Paris. I shall write to my father and tell him of my plans. I hope he shall not be too disappointed in his son not following in his footsteps. 

For my part, I still share lodgings with Bahorel who sometimes is more of a chimerical being than I would care, and is often vexing with his contrariness, but whose company has become as necessary as breathing for me. I have made more friends, including dear old Théo, a warm hearted poet with a fondness for cats, who is apt to break chairs in the salon. I try to help as many of new writers at the salon and at the Petit Cenacle, but none are as dear to me as the eight people that gather in café Musain and sometimes in Corinthe and call ourselves the leaders of Les Amis de la ABC. Enjolras is of course the leader, but he is quick to give up that mantle to any one of us if asked.

Since then, I have been on further adventures to the catacombs and the graveyard with my friends, sharing our love of strange folklore and haunted stories. We even arranged a skull drinking, a la Hans d'Islande by the great Victor Hugo and I in fact procured the skull in question. Bahorel and I have taken to calling each other various secret names occasionally, based on our mysterious encounter and only Courfeyrac knows of the full story and he has bravely vowed to never tell a soul. I shudder at the use that Joly and Bossuet would make of this, for they are always curious about gossip and I blush at how they would tease. 

I have also in true Parisian, or true Petit Cenacle fashion, of which I am a new member, changed my name, a little addition of the _h_, to become Jehan from the humble Jean. You will also be pleased to hear that I am prone to be much less vexed by Bahorel these days and have found in him instead a trustworthy friend and companion to visit graveyards with, to converse with nature and to haunt people. He understands my need to be melancholy from time to time without letting me veer towards excess but is there for me when I need his company. He did me a great service that I cannot forget, involving an incident where he rescued me from the gendarmes, even though we both ended up in prison, more of this to be related in a separate letter. 

Do not, I beg of you, speak of these encounters to our great aunt or to your uncle, my father. They will worry excessively, whereas such events are only too commonplace now, I do not worry about my life or liberty in service of achieving the future we poets write about. I sometimes think that the prison cells I have been in are too well furnished and not dark and damp as deserve to be in a gothic story. For my part, I keep well, and I hope you do too. I shall visit during the holidays for your wedding and will relate all my adventures then.

Yours,

Jehan Prouvaire


End file.
